


The Worst Things In Life Are Hideously Expensive (Or Maybe That's The Best Things?)

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Ghost Soup Infidel Blue
Genre: Because #yuletide, Don't Have to Know Canon, Tropes, Yuletide 2012, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Worst Things In Life Are Hideously Expensive (Or Maybe That's The Best Things?)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AdaptationDecay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdaptationDecay/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Yulegoat says...](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/14337) by AdaptationDecay. 



> This is for BNF (but no fan) AdaptationDecay, because she needs to learn how awesome Annie is and she blocked all my PMs, so she's getting this instead, HA HA HA. And I don't care that I stole from The Catcher in the Rye. How do you like it now when I steal from your favorite book and put it in my fic? Huh? How do you like me now? I swore I would make you feel sorry for Annie, and now I have, so you better give me kudos, or I'll keep writing these and gifting you and making you get the e-mail notifications. Shut up, my plan is awesome.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

No one's interested in that, least of all me.

Maybe I'm a noir detective, maybe I'm the brains of this outfit, taken for a fool until the final chapter, where I figure everything out. I don't get the girl, because this is noir, but I probably end up with lung cancer, so it's suitably _ambiance_. And that's what matters most.

Or maybe I'm a pirate who uses a fake name, let's say Roberts. It would work, no one cares what my name is anyway. (It's Annie, by the way.)

Or maybe I'm a zombie come back to eat you all. And I'll stagger around and maybe Ryan cuts my head off with his lightsaber and then I twitch on the ground until it grows back, because I may be a zombie, but I still have my pride.

Or maybe I'm just a terrible metaphor for life, like I don't exist except in theory, that I'm the evil twin in amongst us all, and not even a twin, but a clone. I'm not someone you merely shared a womb with; you shared your life with me. I am you and you are me, and we are inside each other, but yet separate. Maybe I'm a metaphor for darkness and alienation and your terrible, terrible, terrible ennui and angst. But my life is not written by someone pretentious and literary, but by someone with a terrible grasp of character development and rational behavior, so at least I'm spared that fate.

Or maybe instead of a metaphor, I'm merely an anthropomorphic representation of blackmail. I'm your deepest secrets, I'm your past come back to haunt you, and I'm _you_ and still not, still never, _me_. But my life still isn't a detective story, either. Too bad, it would be more interesting that way.

Or maybe this is a found letter, full of soul-crushing angst and bitter, bitter tears. I may not be an elf, but that doesn't mean I'm soulless. Unlike elves. Maybe I'm no hero, okay, I'm certainly no hero, but that's sexist that you even expect me to be one. Luke and Ryan can be heroes and do dirty deeds, but I'm damned from creation because I'm a clone, and nothing I can do will ever fix that. I can save the world, or at least the ship, but it doesn't matter? Because I'm damned, and I'm not Her. Well, who cares about her? I don't. And that's my letter and maybe you're reading it right now, crying as you finally grok my pain and despair and angst and terrible, horrible, no good, very bad life.

Or maybe I'm channeling my ennui into a constructive pursuit, and I've taken up the drums. That's me in the background, as always in the background, but this time, I'm making some noise, I'm being heard. Behind me, fireworks explode in a panoply of colors, but mostly blue, because who likes red? I don't. The night is awash in blue and silver and green and violet, and it's all full of lights and beauty, like a spaceship launch. And I go boom-boom-boom-bam, delivering the drum line and the throbbing pulse of reality, of music, of joy.

Or maybe I have found my way to a place I can call home, and I've gone back to the very beginning, which I have been reliably informed is a very good place to start. At the beginning, there's Angela, naturally, not me, yet. Not yet. But then she plunges and out comes her, and soon, out comes me. And maybe this time, I turn around and find my own way. Maybe this time, I choose differently. Maybe I never meet Angela, maybe I never fall in with the GSIs, maybe I'm out there, flying. Just flying.

Or maybe I've won an award because I've kept my head in the crisis. While Ryan and Luke and Moira and Angela were all fucking-or-dying (sadly, fucking, not dying), I piloted the ship, I kept everyone's lightsabers from going off prematurely (did you see what I did there?), and just generally was awesome and brilliant and put together.

Or maybe I'm suddenly in high school, because the Captain inconveniently noticed I have no formal education and decided that I couldn't just share Angela's anymore, which makes no sense, because we were the same person until the Consolium cut us into two. But you can't be a Ghost Captain and still have sense, I've always said, but everyone's on my side this time, so they go to high school with me, too, out of solidarity (as one does). Isn't it nice? We pass notes in class. Angela is in the drama club, because she makes enough drama for everyone, and Moira's the head cheerleader, because who else? Ryan and Luke start a fencing club and then get run out of it in the space of a month because high school students, unlike the Admiralty, have no patience for their bullshit.

Or maybe we're all on leave and have decided to roadtrip around the great beaches of Tourist Trap #75. I'm controlling the tunes, because, hey, I was in a band, that means I know the best music. Duh. Moira is driving, because she doesn't need to sleep, in fact, she can't. Ryan's stoned senseless in the back. We left Luke behind at a rest stop. It's the best time ever.

Or maybe this is just a letter, and we're writing back and forth to each other. Maybe our lives are only documents being read in the future... no, that's absurd, sorry, forget it.

But maybe instead we're strippers! ...No, that's even more absurd. Who'd want to see us naked? Our uniforms already leave so little to the imagination. It'd be pointless. Why take it off if there's no fundamental difference between when it's on?

Or maybe everyone's found out my biggest fear is of the vast cold vastness of space, which you can understand is a problem for me. Maybe they're sympathetic, but probably they're not. Probably they're laughing at me. I knew it. I knew they're laughing at me. Ingrates, all of them. Don't they know I saved all their lives while they were too busy fucking to pay attention? And maybe this is my hell even more, because the day keeps repeating on a loop, over and over again, until we break out of this gravitic anomaly. And then maybe everyone apologizes. But probably they don't.

Or maybe this is actually Twelfth Night and I didn't notice until now, because I (read: Angela) was too uneducated. But now I have been to and graduated from high school, so now I know that, really, I live in a Shakespearean farce, and everyone will end up heterosexual, but sort of not really, because that ending is too convenient. So I'll be with Luke, but really I'm with Moira, and Ryan is really with Josh. And that's how everything ended up really, too, so maybe this isn't a Shakespearean play after all. Or maybe it's one of the tragedies. But I haven't read those yet, so I'll get back to you once I do.

Or maybe I've opened a restaurant that serves up nothing but heartbreak, and then my band comes back, and we writes songs about it, and then Moira and Angela become a girl group and then Luke starts singing the blues. And we all sing at each other and it is awesome, because we're making music, not war, dude. We're giving peace a chance. Imagine life is a hellscape full of horrors, no, wait, that's not how that goes (except that I think it really is, you should read my posts about it, it's totally apocafic, I don't care what everyone else thinks, I am totally right and you all are wrong). But the restaurant is great and that's what matters.

Or maybe we've been shipwrecked (I'm still a pirate here) and we have to survive against all odds, which is a problem, but it turns out that we have food and water and so no one has to eat Ryan, which we can all agree is a plus. He'd get stuck in our teeth and that would be a shame. And then I build a boat out of bamboo and sugar and spice and other things that aren't nice, and then we sail away to our next great adventure, and I'm still the hero (even though I'm a pirate, I think we can all agree that pirates can be heroes, or maybe just anti-heroes, I've never been entirely clear on what that means, because isn't an anti-hero, just by definition, the villain? Or a villain? This has always confused me. And if they don't mean that, well, why call them a hero at all? Just call them Badass Normal and be done with it. I'd link to tv tropes here, but I'm not actually a villain, even though I'm playing one in this fic.)

Or maybe this is my spin-off show, let's color-code it Crimson Ice, and I'm in the title credits. Me, not that hack who looks like me but still doesn't care to learn a thing about me. Maybe I get to kiss the hero, but maybe I'm just kissing Luke instead. Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. But maybe.

Or maybe this is all a dream, and I'm going to wake up, still covered in vat-goo and aching down to my bones from another fight, or maybe wrapped up in cheap sheets and tears and loneliness, or maybe just in bed. Yeah, probably that one.

Or maybe this is something we've never seen before, maybe I'm something new, something interesting, something different. Maybe I was left on the cutting room floor, maybe my phone keeps restarting over and over again, why is it doing that?, and maybe this is a missing episode about that, maybe it's the saga of Annie and her strange comphone, which will turn out to be an amazing, gripping story full of twists and turns and plot and spies, and then I save the day and absolutely no one's lightsabers, because I learned my lesson last time, and I will never save one of those again, Ryan, you can requisition yourself a new one if you need to. We can head down to the quartermaster's together; I need a new phone.

Or maybe we're all actually dead and this is our hell. (This is totally my hell, but I'm a clone, so if I say it's hell and everyone says it's heaven, guess what, it's heaven by consensus. Stupid consensus.)

Or maybe I'm the author of my own life, writing these words, telling you more about myself than anyone would honestly think necessary. But if so, who would know? Who could tell? I'm just flying around in this spaceship known as life, dodging those infernal nuisances known as space elves, and practicing my smile. Maybe. Yes, maybe.

But actually I woke up and it was just a dream. DAMN IT.

**Author's Note:**

> OOC: Happy Yuletide, [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/AdaptationDecay/profile)**[AdaptationDecay](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/AdaptationDecay/)**! Thanks to Kaesa for the beta.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Yuletide Reveal Meta Post](http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/707046.html)


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